While America has seen isolated outbreaks of Potomac Fever in the past – we have never witnessed a full-scale outbreak during an election.

Well, hang tight! You’re seeing one now. The symptoms are delusion, denial, anger and rage. These will be followed by full-blown insanity within a few weeks.

Potomac Fever starts innocently enough. The “folks back home” send ol’ Harry, Fred, Sheila and Sandy to Washington, D.C., to “represent” them. They seemed like a nice enough group of folks – and very important – they wanted the job. They all came from back home, had jobs, businesses or farms of their own. And most importantly – they knew how much government “help” the folks back home could tolerate!

There are many complex theories about how Potomac Fever spreads, once an infected person enters Washington, D.C. Some say it is airborne and that it is enough to be in the room with an infected lobbyist or career politician when he coughs. Others insist that it is spread through glad-handing and backslapping, both practices indigenous to the political process.

Still others insist that Potomac Fever is spread only through the exchange of bodily fluids – an idea with its own set of issues about “representation” in D.C.

What do I think? Don’t drink the water. And be careful where the Kool-Aid comes from.

Actually, research carried out over the past 20 years demonstrates that Potomac Fever is spread by big media. Reporters, editors and even paper delivery boys are all carriers. They exhibit no outward symptoms, other than their “stories.”

Deep inside Potomac Fever carriers, the normal connections in the brain have been destroyed. Thus, individual freedom becomes, in their minds, tyranny. Government seizing more money through taxes becomes “economic stimulus,” and the reduced amount of money available causes more private investment and job creation. Teachers’ unions exist for the good of the children. There is no difference between legal and illegal immigration. One burial plot – one voter.

Potomac Fever goes into remission when progressives, socialists and communists get their way. (Note that this usually involves the exchange of bodily fluids with the “folks back home” who elected them, and now get to pay for D.C.’s insanity.)

Potomac Fever comes out of remission when the host realizes the “folks back home” aren’t going to be exchanging any more bodily fluids with them. Delusion, denial, anger and rage quickly express themselves, directed against the “folks back home.”

During the last stages, Potomac Fever includes outrageous abuses of power, lying about one’s own record, distorting and denying the facts and vilifying one’s political opponents, particularly challengers.

There is only one successful treatment for Potomac Fever. The infected person must be isolated from all connection with political power – and physically removed from Washington, D.C. Therein lies the only hope of restoring the infected person to a functioning, productive member of society.